Hard Deck

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 1:36:35 PM UTC-5, Charlie M. (UH & 002
Another contest site example.......

Hey Charlie: The finish cylinder minimum for 2018 is now 800 over the airport / 1 mi. It's been at least 500 / 1 mi for a decade. What was exciting for you was too exciting for organizers (heavily influenced by others that weren't able to offset bad judgement with good luck).

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

Golly, I thought at the 2017 18 meter nationals, they had a 50 ft finish line?

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 11:23:21 AM UTC-8, Tango Eight wrote:
On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 1:36:35 PM UTC-5, Charlie M. (UH & 002
Another contest site example.......

Hey Charlie: The finish cylinder minimum for 2018 is now 800 over the airport / 1 mi. It's been at least 500 / 1 mi for a decade. What was exciting for you was too exciting for organizers (heavily influenced by others that weren't able to offset bad judgement with good luck).

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 2:45:41 PM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Golly, I thought at the 2017 18 meter nationals, they had a 50 ft finish line?

Any contest that includes a sports class has to use a finish ring with the designated minimum. The finish line still puts in an occasional guest appearance at Nats.

T8

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 3:00:15 PM UTC-5, Tango Eight wrote:
On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 2:45:41 PM UTC-5, Jonathan St. Cloud wrote:
Golly, I thought at the 2017 18 meter nationals, they had a 50 ft finish line?

Any contest that includes a sports class has to use a finish ring with the designated minimum. The finish line still puts in an occasional guest appearance at Nats.

T8

well, and thank god for that!

A few safety notes from SK point of view:

http://www.opensoaring.com/sebastian...8-in-vitacura/

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 12:03:39 PM UTC-8, wrote:
A few safety notes from SK point of view:

http://www.opensoaring.com/sebastian...8-in-vitacura/

Thank you very much for sharing!

Agreed, my second hospital landing was prefaced by a "glide" I never wanted to do in the first part, absolutely never want me, or others, to do again.
You know the site and that route.
I think you were there for both my lawn landings.
A rusty pilot may have broken something on my second one.
I am all for trying to keep things safe, but there becomes a fine line in certain situations where it is "sorta OK" for one and a statistic for another.

I remember a "squirrel" that landed south at HHSC in a fairly new ASW-24, didn't have enough brake (really!?!?) to stop on the pavement, watched him go over the backside of the hill!
Glad he didn't hit trailers parked down there.
Peeps like that can't land in middling sized field let alone an airport.

The question is, at what level of competence do we write rules for?
Is it different for a regional vs. a nationals?
The possible assumption being that Nats is a higher level. On the other hand, with declining participation in contests, the minimums to get in may be lowered so the site can "maybe" break even.

Sorta screwed one way or another.

I sort of had a different version on all of this.

Let the scoring program calculate and flag any circling flight below XXX feet AGL. At that altitude the default is you get a 100 point penalty and at 80% of XXX' the default penalty is a landout. The pilot who gets flagged may then go to the CD and make his/her case for why his flying was safe because he was: 1) circling over high ground or 2) in a pattern for a good field landing into the wind or uphill and had arrived at an altitude to properly scout the landing. These things don't happen that often so I don't see a big burden for CDs and if the goal is to not give points benefits to deliberately irresponsible behavior, maybe that would do it. No SUA files, just use good judgement. If you did a low save off the downwind to base turn on approach to a beautiful field - good job! If you made a set of terrible choices and did a best L/D glide to a downwind straight-in to a terrible field and scraped one off the trees next to the high-tension wires, maybe you don't get the passing grade.

Just an idea. I'm sure it's fatally flawed in some way to someone.

Andy Blackburn
9B

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 3:49:35 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:

Just an idea.

Here's mine: Shame the offender at the pilots' meeting. Display the offending bit of the flight trace and give the offender the "opportunity" to give the day's safety talk.

In the case of egregious or repeat violations of good sense, get the safety committee together and discuss a points based penalty (or DQ if it comes to that). I loved Cindy's story about OF, sounds like that they got that one right on the money.

Of course, my interest here has more to do with actual contest safety, less with who gets to go to WGC.

best,
Evan Ludeman / T8

On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 1:24:17 PM UTC-8, Tango Eight wrote:
On Monday, January 29, 2018 at 3:49:35 PM UTC-5, Andy Blackburn wrote:
Just an idea.

Here's mine: Shame the offender at the pilots' meeting. Display the offending bit of the flight trace and give the offender the "opportunity" to give the day's safety talk.


Ooooo, I like it. We did something similar in Reg 12 for our Spring safety seminars. From the previous season's whoopsies, I culled a list of willing presenters to give the "Scared Witless" vignettes.
It was an audio version of "I Learned About Flying From That". Obviously they had to be survivors, and Willing. It was a very popular format - five minutes and done.

In the case of egregious or repeat violations of good sense, get the safety committee together and discuss a points based penalty (or DQ if it comes to that). I loved Cindy's story about OF, sounds like that they got that one right on the money.

Thanks, Evan and others. I make the stories personal to make them pertinent.

I will occasionally protect the guilty. One pilot told his 'Witless' story, proudly, smilingly. When we got to the part where - 'how would you change this to avoid the whole scenario?' -- there was a blank stare by the pilot.
'Uuuh, I didn't crash, it was a great job.'
The audience sneaked a bunch of quick looks at me.... and the show went on.
It was a GREAT teaching moment, that I had Not Scripted. Even ~8 months later,
he didn't know what was off-the-page wrong about his thinking.

With a savvy CD/CM, the public replay could be a useful disincentive. And a delightful relief from, " I got high, ran fast; got low, slowed up; went the other way and got home first" talks.

Of course, my interest here has more to do with actual contest safety, less with who gets to go to WGC.


Consensus on what's unacceptable behavior. That's the trick.....
and I too know many local pilots who avoid racing due to 'crazy behavior'.
A group of pilots, that's fun.
Sometimes we call it a race/contest.

Best wishes,
Cindy B